Book by emory harkins by Freestyle Academy

About the Author

R i s e The Only Place Left to Go Is Up

Kearstyn (Emory) Harkins, is a junior at Los Altos High School and Freestyle Academy. She enjoys reading, writing, listening to and making music, along with other creative endeavors. She would like to continue making more imaginative things in the future and have the opportunity to explore and see what she is capable of. Her creative goal is to make others feel strongly when they see her work. Whether they feel hopeful, scared, or any other range of emotions, she wants to be able to draw out emotions through her creations.

Emory Harkins

R i s e The Only Place Left to Go Is Up

Emory Harkins

For my mom, a constant pillar of strength and love that I will always be grateful for.

iii

I want to thank Freestyle Academy for helping me create this book and making this project possible. I again want to thank my mom, who is the star of this project, for letting me take dozens of pictures of her and being patient when I needed to retake some shots. Thank you to all of the people that I interviewed and to the Palo Alto VA for allowing me to take pictures in their facility. Thank you all for your time and kindness.

Table of Contents

Preface................................9 Introduction......................11

Chapter One....................13 Chapter Two.....................17 Chapter Three..................21

Conclusion.......................25 Works Cited......................27

Preface

t Freestyle Academy, we have a documentary unit, which, in the end, produced this book. The purpose of our documentary project was to find someone or something in the community that we thought would be important to explore. Therefore, the topic that I chose to explore in this project is the idea of resilience and success, specifically using my mom as an example. I wanted to show that people should always carry hope in their hearts and do what they need to in order to accomplish their dreams. It’s important that people are able to see past their obstacles and look toward the future. I had a few problems trying to finalize my ideas, and I changed the angle of my project slightly from just writing about my mom’s resilience to making a hopeful piece that can encourage others to do their best. I wanted to make a feel-good piece that celebrates all of the obstacles that my mom has had to overcome in order to achieve her dreams. I was also worried about how I should address my mom. I wanted to make sure that the fact that Janna is

my mom is evident throughout the book, but I didn’t want to exclude the audience by overusing “mom” and “mother”. I finally decided on using “Janna” to refer to my mom while using “mom” intermittently throughout the book Making the commercial for my book in my Digital Media class was really fun. I was able to explore After Effects more and made something that I’m really proud of. Even making the audio for the commercial was really interesting, because I was able to insert music and audio from an interview that I did with my mom’s brother and combine it with my narration. Having the ability to give my creative drive a purpose was really fulfilling, and I was excited to share what I had made with the class for critiques. I want the people that read my book to take away a feeling of happiness and excitement for the possibilities of their future. I also want my readers to know that they have the ability to do anything that they want to as long as they are willing to work hard and climb over whatever obstacles threaten to stop them.

Waiting Room In the Psychology Department at the Palo Alto VA

Introduction

y mother, Dr. Janna Holmes, is a kind woman with soft, shoulder-length, chocolate-brown hair and light green eyes. She speaks with a thinly veiled dialect that nearly conceals her southern roots, her drawl emerging more prominently as you speak with her. She wears comfortable yet stylish clothes that are dark and professional. She has a few scattered freckles on her face that reveal long days spent bathing in the hot sun in the hot southern summer. Though her appearance may make her seem delicate, Janna is actually extremely tough and hardworking. She is a forensic psychologist who works with prison inmates to help them get through one of the roughest times in their lives. Her soft demeanor makes her easy to open up to, but she is strong enough to stand up for herself if she feels she needs to. Forensic psychology is the study of criminals’ minds and characteristics. The field of psychology has interested Janna for a long time, but she simply didn’t have the resources in her life when she was younger.

Being born in rural Arkansas, Janna was not expected to to further her education past a Master’s degree at most. She felt very limited and somewhat trapped behind the bars of rural life. She was, however, encouraged to further her education by her aunt and others in her family. This encouragement is often cited by her as the main reason she went back to school in the first place. She knew that she wanted to further her education, but she didn’t know if she actually should actually make the leap back into school. To be able to take that first step forward, she had to power through a lot of her issues. Janna is an extremely strong and empowered woman and has brought that strength into the way that she raised me. She taught me to stand up for myself and be strong enough to look past the obstacles in front of me and march forward. She taught me how to take care of myself and how to take care of others. Everything she has done since I was born has been to make our collective lives better, and I couldn’t think of a more amazing and powerful symbol of resilience.

Janna Driving

Chapter One: Strength

anna has not always been as steadfast as she is today. When she was younger, she had no idea what she was going to do later in life. When I asked her what she wanted to be when she was little, she said, “When I was younger I wanted to...I don’t know – I don’t really remember at a really young age knowing what I wanted to do. I didn’t really figure out what I wanted to do or be until I was older”. Choosing what you want to do in life is one of the first big hurdles that people have to overcome if they want to be successful. For my mom, it was a bit of a process, but she ran into many fields undeterred. When asked when Janna first started acting so resilient and kind, her mother, Janis Wagner-Holmes, provided that “once she started going back to school and well... went through her hospital stay and has a daughter that she gives more to. I think it’s just opened her eyes and she’s

given more to people.” In other words, she has witnessed a large shift in how her daughter has acted throughout her life. Janis is not the only person in Janna’s life that has witnessed her change in personality and desire to make a difference in the world. Her brother, Landen Holmes, also spoke about how he feels she has grown through her academic pursuits.

You know, she could have very easily chose to play the “poor pitiful me” party, or go “Oh, why did this happen to me?”, but I think she embraced it. Not that she never questioned it, but you know, you just embrace those times and life gets hard. And in those moments you have a choice to either make your life better because of situations or you can become 13

bitter about situations and ya know I think, through her story and continuing to live out her life, she chooses to make the best opportunity and I think that’s very encouraging for people. (L. Holmes)

The resilience she has developed over the years has led to her ability to bounce back after very difficult things come up in her life. While in her fourth year of her six year graduate program, Janna’s mother was diagnosed with cancer. This family tragedy was extremely difficult to deal with, at the time she felt like the world was on her shoulders. She was in graduate school, which was stressful enough in and of itself, but she also had a child to look after, and hearing that her mother, who she was extremely close to, had gotten cancer was especially crushing. Her mother is healthy today, making it through her sickness in the same way that my mom got over hers. When Janna was still in her midtwenties she went to the hospital after feeling sick for several days previous. The doctors found that she had contracted necrotising fasciitis which 14

was quickly spreading across the left side of her torso. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention described necrotising fasciitis as “a serious bacterial

skin infection that spreads quickly and kills the body’s soft tissue [that] can be deadly in a very short amount of time”.

Her whole life seemed to grind to a halt. She couldn’t see her four-year-old daughter for weeks after the operation to get the disease cut out of her. She was scared, and felt trapped inside her hospital bed. The bars of her mobile hospital bed feeling uncannily like prison bars for those long couple of weeks while she had to relearn how to walk. I asked Janna what one of the most difficult challenges she had to overcome was. Without hesitation, she started talking about being sent to the Intensive Care Unit when she got necrotising fasciitis. “All I could think about

was gathering up enough strength to walk again to be able to get out of ICU so I could get into a room to even

see [Emory] again, because I wasn’t able to see her--of course--in ICU”.

She was determined to escape the Intensive Care Unit and get to a place where she could see her four year old child. My mom and I were unable to see each other while she was recovering, but that only pushed my mom to get healthy as quick as possible. I believe that this is the first major milestone on her track to becoming more resilient in both her academic and personal lives.

“you have a choice to either make your life better because of situations or you can become bitter about situations” - Landen Holmes

Chapter Two: Resolve

esilience is key to success, if you aren’t able to pick yourself up after your failures, you won’t be able to succeed in life. Dr. Holmes has proven herself as resilient over and over again in the process of obtaining her degree. She was constantly confronted with bumps in the road before she was able to get to where she is now. Clinical psychologist, Norman Garmezy studied resilience for the majority of his career and is renowned for his findings. In his 1994 paper, he wrote about the “locus of control” and how it determines whether someone is resilient or not. If someone has an internal locus of control, they believe that they can change the situations they are in, whereas if they have an external locus of control, they believe the situations they are

in influence them. In other words, they believe they have limited, or no, control over their own lives. Garmezy claimed that those that had an internal locus of control were more resilient than those with an external locus of control. The internal locus of control led people to strive to do better for themselves as opposed to just giving up when life gets hard. They fought to break themselves away from bad situations and didn’t feel helpless or trapped in their environment. While my mom believes that both internal and external factors play a role in whether someone is resilient or not, she sees herself as having more of an internal locus of control. She works hard to put herself into situations that benefit her. So while it

may seem that the environment around her allows her to get to certain places, it is ultimately her hard work that has placed her in those situations. Working at San Quintin State Prison was something that she had to work really hard for. She had to earn her place at such a renowned prison. She wanted to help others that were placed into the system and felt as though they were stuck in a never-ending cycle of going to prison and landing on the streets, only to go back again not too long after they were set free. Both Garmezy and the American Management Association claim that a sense of purpose is crucial for people to be resilient. Feeling like you have a more solid goal in life makes it much easier to just zonein on that goal and rush toward it with everything you have. For my mom, that goal was becoming a psychologist and helping people as best she could. In the same paper, Garmezy corroborated claims by colleges that spirituality could also increase a person’s resilience. Likewise, my mom is a moderately religious person, and once she recovered and got out of the hospital, she was determined to find her 18

purpose in life. She wanted to know why she was given this second chance at life and, even more, she wanted to make sure that she fulfilled that purpose. Kitty Kelley quotes Oprah Winfrey in her biography: “‘I

knew, knowing God as I do, that that would happen,’ Oprah said, ‘but I kept asking, ‘Why has this happened and what am I supposed to learn from it?’’ (165). This faith relates to Garmezy’s

claim as well as my mom’s recovery. This religiousness shows that Oprah was reflecting on her life and was trying to find out what to do from there. My mom did the same thing when she got out of the hospital. She had to try to pull her life together and figure out what steps she was supposed to take from that point forward. Having the ability to recover from your failures is important if you want to do anything substantial in your life because you need to have the ability to make mistakes and learn from them. If you are not resilient, the moment you face a road block, you will give up and move onto something else. All of these reasons support the argument that resilience is absolutely necessary to succeed.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Why has this happened and what am I supposed to learn from it?â&#x20AC;? - Oprah Winfrey

Chapter Three: Perserverance

hrough

both

personal

and

academic

Giving up was not an option for her, she wanted a

endeavors, Janna Holmes has shown just

better life for both herself and me. She wanted not

how important resilience is for success

only to improve both of our lives, but to provide

in life. She could have given up at many points in

a good example for me, her only child. I was only

her life, and she could hardly be blamed after the

ten when she started going back to school, and

number of stressfull and terrifying things she had

now that I have seen how far she has come in the

to go through, but she didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. She kept moving

seven years since then. Her courage and strength

forward, deciding to take her fate into her own

has encouraged me to do the most with my life that

hands and do all she could to better herself and

I can. When things happen in my life that make me

those around her.

want to give up, I am compelled by my momâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s story

Strength and stubborn resolve were all that she

to continue pushing forward.

showed when she was confronted with the hardships

Dr. Brian Maruyama is a close friend of Janna

that were piled on her, one after the other, as she

who went the the same graduate school she did.

struggled to get where she wanted to be in life.

I asked him how he felt about her and what she 21

has accomplished through her years of schooling in his eyes. He told me, “she perseveres and

she doesn’t let things bring her down-of course she mourns and she grieves when things don’t go her way, but she pulls back , she doesn’t give up, and she keeps fighting until she gets to where she needs to be ”. They both worked incredibly hard to get through

If Janna was not as resilient as she has turned out to be, she would not be where she is today. Her irrepressible resolve m a de he r st r o n g e n o u gh to t a k e o n t he c o u nt l e ss c ha l l e nges tha t ha v e p op p ed u p i n he r pa t h a nd ha ve pr e pa red her to fa ce those c ha l l e nge s he a d - o n.

graduate school together, and Dr. Maruyama

T hi s a b i l i t y f o r he r t o power through those

didn’t miss the extra pressure that was placed onto

c ha l l e nge s i n he r l i f e a l so p rep a red her more

Janna’s shoulders. She was

f o r gr a d u a t e sc ho o l , w hi c h ha s been n o wa l k in

one of the only people

t he pa r k . I n pe r su i t o f he r PhD she ha s sp ea n t

in her program who

ho u r s hu nc he d o ve r b o o k s a n d mon ths work in g

were

told you s h e ha s h a d a rou g her r o a d than a l o t o f o t h e r p e o p l e , b u t s h e sticks with it”.

going

o n r e se a r c h pa pe r s t ha t he l p her hel p others.

school while also

J a nna se e s t he d i f f i c u l t i es tha t she ha s ha d

raising a child.

i n he r l i f e m o r e o pt i m i st i ca l l y tha n others in

“I’m proud of her for getting through a l l o f the things that she ’s done. I

he r po si t i o n u su a l l y w o u l d . She sa id , “all the

‘ hurdles ’ in my life have cause d me to b e more resilient”. T his resp on se to her m i sf o r t u ne sho w s ju st ho w g ood she is a t p ushin g pa st t o u gh t hi ngs t ha t w o u l d’ v e stop p ed someon e t ha t w a s l e ss d e t e r m i ne d t han she wa s to imp rov e he r o w n l i f e a s w e l l a s m i ne .

Brian Maruyama (left)

“she doesn’t give up, and she keeps fighting until she gets to where she needs to be” - Brian Maruyama

Conclusion

eing resilient is a huge factor in becoming successful in any capacity. If you are able to take what the world throws at you and make the most out of it, then you can be succeed as long as you are ready and willing to put in the effort. If you are able to learn from your mistakes and make yourself better because of them, then you do anything you set your mind to If you make a point to find out why you were given this life and what you can do to help others, then you can be successful. Resilience is the key to being successful in any capacity of your life. So whether you are facing a difficult point in your life, or you are trying your best to get through a long paper, just power through it and you can achieve great things. The next step for Janna is to go to a post doctorate program and complete her training there. Seeing as how her life has gone thus far, there is no doubt in my mind that she will do well in whatever she ends up doing and wherever she ends up going.

The enterance of the psychology department at the Palo Alto VA

Works Cited Holmes, Janis Personal Interview. 20 February 2018 Holmes, Janna. Personal Interview. 18 March 2018 ---. Personal Interview. 25 March 2018 Holmes, Landen. Personal Interview. 20 February 2018 Kelley, Kitty. Oprah: a Biography. Three Rivers Press, 2011. Luthar, Suniya S., et al. “The Construct of Resilience: A Critical Evaluation and Guidelines for Future Work.” Advances in Pediatrics., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2000, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ PMC1885202/. Accessed: 3 March 2018 Maddi, Salvatore R, and Deborah M Khoshaba. “Resilience: The Secret to Success” American Management Association, 2018, www.amanet.org/training/articles/resilience-the-secret-to-success.aspx. Accessed: 3 March 2018. Maruyama, Brian. Personal Interview. 15 March 2018 “Necrotising Fasciitis.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 3 July 2017, www.cdc.gov/ features/ necrotizingfasciitis/ index.html. Accessed: 3 Mar. 2018. 27

About the Author

R i s e The Only Place Left to Go Is Up

Emory Harkins